PANAMA

legal system: based on civil law system; judicial review of legislative acts in the Supreme Court of Justice; five superior courts; three courts of appeal

legislative system: Unicameral Legislative Assembly

judicial system: Supreme Court of Justice

religion: 85% Catholic; 15% Protestant

death row:

year of last executions: 0-0-0

death sentences: 0

executions: 0

international treaties on human rights and the death penalty:

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

1st Optional Protocol to the Covenant

Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (aiming to the abolition of the death penalty)

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

American Convention on Human Rights

Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights to abolish the Death Penalty

Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture

Statute of the International Criminal Court (which excludes the death penalty)

situation:The Constitution of the Republic of Panama (1972) at Art. 3 states: "There is no death penalty." The last execution was in 1903. The maximum sentence is 20 years' imprisonment. In 2004, a legislative proposal by the president to raise the penalty for murder to life imprisonment was rejected.

On December 19, 2016, Panama co-sponsored and voted again in favour of the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.On 29 September 2017, Panama voted again in favour of the Resolution on the Death Penalty at the 36° session of the UN Council on Human Rights.

Hands off Cain is an international league of citizens and parliamentarians for the abolition of the death penalty in the world. It is a non-profit, non-violent, transnational and trans-national Partito Radicale founded in Brussels in 1993 and recognized in 2005 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a development co-operation NGO.